slanging match

Like totally. For real. Awesomeness.

If I had dared to say anything so ridiculous while I was still under my mother's roof, I would have been forced to write it out proper, like, till it was well cemented in my brain, janowomean?

But once they go to school, it seems to me your powers of influence as a parent have little chance against the power of playground clique. Like any tribe, they'll form their rules (everyone has to come to school with a care-bear key ring, all in favour?) and they'll communicate through their own speak. So, when you can’t understand your kids, it’s not a sign of dementia: it’s a symptom of the generation-gap challenge. But rather than fix their figuratives, we should stop and listen. Slang can provide a fascinating insight into their lives – and it’s easier than reading their diary…

All language evolves, but not arf as fast as slang. Slang is the lingo of the young, and while we stick fast to the abbreviations and distortions of our yesteryear, the distance between us and our kids is growing. They may not be bovvered, innit, but it’s disconcerting for an adult trying to communicate with their child; oh, alright, trying to listen in on their phone conversations!

Before we ask: why do they do it? We do have to take a moment to mourn our loss of memory and our descent into fogie-dom. After all, we did it. Our expressions may seem more benign in comparison, but purely because colloquial language is a sign of the times. And in the words of Dylan – which means little to all those born after 1970, and even that’s pushing it – the times they are a changing’.

“In-groups, with their own 'micro-cultures'-behaviour, rituals, prejudices, fads and special obsessions tend to evolve their own private languages,” says Tony Thorne, Head of the Language Centre at King's College, London, and author of Shoot the Puppy: A Survival Guide to the Curious Jargon of Modern Life (Penguin). “These are mainly to give names to things, like drugs or music – that standard language doesn't have names for.” And before we let mouths gape and aghast, such pastimes were around in our day. If you’ve forgotten them so readily, they may well have had something to do with it!

“Slang can be generated by drugs and related behaviour, by crime – especially by gang culture and by music or the internet, or any exclusive activities of subcultures. It exists always as a deliberate alternative to standard language. It is the most colloquial form of language on a spectrum that goes from formal to informal.”

But on a more innocent note, what’s happened to expressions in my UK-based childhood like Skill, Tops and Ace? They were good enough for us, weren’t they? “Important elements of slang are described by linguists as 'vogue terms' and these rely on their novelty or trendiness for their power, therefore they have to constantly be renewed and replaced,” says Tony. “But they don't necessarily disappear, they just get picked up by less trendy speakers – so 'wicked', for example, has not been used by the ultra-fashionable since the end of the 1970s, but is still used in some primary and junior school playgrounds. It's the words for approval that signal whether you are in the know or not that tend to change fastest – fab/gear/ace/brill/dope/phat/sick etc.”

But more than a reflection of recreational dabbling – oral or aural – slang can be seen as verbal glue, or branding. “It helps the members of the in-group to define themselves and to keep outsiders out; so they will typically have nicknames, categories of people that others can't recognise, together with their own special insults, put-downs and fashionable terms of approval and disapproval,” says Tony. “Sometimes these private vocabularies stay within a very small, exclusive group, but sometimes they cross over and are adopted by a wider group, maybe eventually being picked up for song lyrics and by the media.”

But should we be bothered. That’s with a TH. Catherine Tate’s Lauren – a trendier take on Little Britain’s yeah-but-no-but Vikki, with her Chav (hope that’s right) self-possession and teen aggression makes us laugh, but it also makes us cringe. What if our kids spoke like that! And if they do already – should we be horrified with this sloppy talk?

“To a linguist slang is not sloppy: it can sometimes be used as a substitute for looking for the more precise term perhaps, but it can also be very creative, inventive, nuanced and even poetic – it can extend a person's linguistic range and capabilities rather than limiting them.” Poetry? Poetry? Yeah but, like, no but, whatever?

“We can disapprove of it when it is used at the wrong time, in the wrong context,” Tony adds. “Andyoung people may need to be reminded that slang – just like other styles of language such as technical/very formal/literary – must be used appropriately. It has its place, but will cause problems if used in formal situations, in exams, job interviews or in the presence of more conservative people.”

So from a parent’s point of view. It’s got to be toleration, in moderation, ant’it!

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